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Xenochrist posted:That guy comes across as quite the rear end in a top hat. I'm only on book 7, and even as someone who is enjoying the books I am quick to point out the series' faults, but still, I can't help but feel that that guy is being both overly simplistic and overly antagonistic towards WoT. The simpsons-did-it argument is so worn out. He's a know nothing hack of a writer who is angry about another writer's success. He writes purely sci-fi and it's all pretty terrible. I don't know why we're bringing up some slam piece in The Guardian as if it matters at all. No offence Hieronymous. It just seems like a silly article, and looking into the author, he's some nobody internet journalist either writing 'sensationalist' headlines to get views, or working out a grudge against a more successful author.
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Apr 20, 2014 00:50
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Yeah I read all of those and they felt like the reviews of a guy skimming the books to make some sort of predetermined point.
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Apr 20, 2014 03:17
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On a non-related note, you could find a lot of weird WoT related fansites on Geocities. But regardless, I kinda like WoT due to the large cultural expanse.
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Apr 28, 2014 17:58
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The Lord Bude posted:Personally I always felt books 6&7 were the best. In fact probably 4-8. and I prefer 9&10 to the first 3 although they aren't as good as some of the others. It's a controversial opinion to have, but I always felt much of the hate towards later books came from frustration at the slow pacing in books being dribbled out years apart. Being able to read the entire series in one hit massively changes the experience for the better in my opinion. I like the Mat parts of books 8-onward, but by 10 or so I was really just reading it for Mat. Sure, he did gently caress all but Sit in a bunch of wagons for most of that but at least he was entertaining while doing so.
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Apr 29, 2014 07:14
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the JJ posted:I like the Mat parts of books 8-onward, but by 10 or so I was really just reading it for Mat. I think a big part of the reason I feel differently towards books 8-10 is that I like Elayne, and I like Egwene, and so I enjoyed reading the Elayne and Egwene plots from those books a great deal.
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Apr 29, 2014 08:06
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See when I first read through, (I started in the lull between 10 and 11) I was so enthralled by the time I hit 8 that I just get steamrolling through until I hit 10 and didn't really notice they were slow. They really fall down upon rereading, "Darkhounds were here!" "Darkhounds?" "Yes Darkhounds" "Welp, it's a good thing we'll never see them!" Otherwise though, I think that Jordan's achievement is the creation of this expansive world and the creation of a story that spans 3500 years of it. The thing is though, I have basically no idea what clunky writing even means. I just don't get riled by that; it's probably because I don't do very much fiction reading outside of this series. I can imagine myself ceasing to read a book because the plot doesn't make sense or characters act inconsistently, but not because of language issues. Presumably the level of vision that Jordan shows is sufficient to compensate for instances of bad prose? We can accept things to be flawed whilst still understanding that they are great.
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Apr 29, 2014 11:34
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The Lord Bude posted:I think a big part of the reason I feel differently towards books 8-10 is that I like Elayne, and I like Egwene, and so I enjoyed reading the Elayne and Egwene plots from those books a great deal. What's wrong with you?
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Apr 29, 2014 13:42
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Yorkshire Tea posted:See when I first read through, (I started in the lull between 10 and 11) I was so enthralled by the time I hit 8 that I just get steamrolling through until I hit 10 and didn't really notice they were slow. That's the same time I started, so 10 ended on a cliffhanger, and I had to wait 2 years for 11, which was a satisfying read. That first time I blew through 1 to 10 in about a month - and I was in High school at the time. Two weeks of that was during the September Holidays and I spent the time doing basically nothing else but read. I think Jordan was a really good writer - there was certainly nothing wrong with his prose on a technical level, although it wasn't on par with say, Tolkien or Patrick O'brien. It was his style that people either love or hate - the almost OCD like descriptions of absolutely everything, the leisurely pacing. I actually really like all that stuff, and I'd happily say that Jordan is one of my favourite writers, but I know others didn't.
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Apr 29, 2014 13:51
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The Lord Bude posted:I think a big part of the reason I feel differently towards books 8-10 is that I like Elayne, and I like Egwene, and so I enjoyed reading the Elayne and Egwene plots from those books a great deal.
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Apr 29, 2014 14:03
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My biggest problem with the Egwene storyline is that everyone one of her enemies was some cliched "full of herself and looks down on everyone" style boring villain both Elaida and the black sister who gets outsmarted by some 18 year old who spent what 4 months actually at the white tower? Same thing with Elayne the woman she who was leading the war against her seemed to exist only to be the opposite of Elayne and show how "good" she is.
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Apr 30, 2014 20:25
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socialsecurity posted:"full of herself and looks down on everyone" I wouldn't call that a problem with Egwene.
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Apr 30, 2014 22:27
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Nihilarian posted:Isn't that literally every villain in the series? Arrogance is a trait that the Dark One seems to seek out. I don't think Colavaere for instance was a Darkfriend though, what's her excuse? OK maybe the DO propped her up, but I don't think there's a reason all the villains have to be this way. As far as the Chosen and anyone who wants to be like them, though, yeah. You have to be dumb as bricks just to begin to entertain the idea that the Father of Lies cares about rewarding your loyalty. To bet your life on it requires such a preposterous level of Dunning-Kruger overconfidence that at that point, it's practically a given that you would consider yourself the smartest person on the planet. The only one of that whole bunch that turned out to have a brain was Ishamael.
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Apr 30, 2014 23:26
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Asmodean was pretty chill though, not all that arrogant compared to the rest, just opportunistic (and a complete sociopath, but that's a given).
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May 1, 2014 18:50
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Yeah the Chosen get a pass on all being arrogant dicks, I will even forgive their decision to sell their soul to the father of lies because at least he does actually give them the true power and make them immortal(balefire aside) so he does provide a tangible benefit for joining. The problem is every other none chosen villain also acts like them when they have the chance to be multidimensional and it's mostly present, at no point do we question if Elaine getting the thrown is 100% the right thing or is she is going to fail at any point helping her storyline feel like 5-6 books of pointless nonsense.
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May 1, 2014 20:16
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The whole King Arthur redux that is the royal Andor storylines feels kinda tacked on to be honest. If RJ had plotted out the series to be the length they ended up I get the feeling that both Andor and the Whitecloaks / Masema would have looked quite different and felt better integrated with the rest.
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May 2, 2014 12:41
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Also Rand wouldn't have had 3 girlfriends, because that was really loving unnecessary.
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May 2, 2014 15:17
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Neurosis posted:Also Rand wouldn't have had 3 girlfriends, because that was really loving unnecessary.
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May 2, 2014 17:10
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I've now finished Books 8 and 9. These were easily my favourite ones so far. Even when his pacing stumbles a bit (like the stuttered battles in 8) Jordan knows how to write a dramatic climax. And what a climax! The use of the Shadar Logoth taint, and how Rand's wounds mirror the battle going on in the Source was a nice touch. It actually gave a clear, intuitive, explanation for what was going on, instead of the normal rambling-on about Weaves and Spirit. That and the bluffs in Far Madding about the Channel-suppression kind of sum-up Jordan's approach to his heroes. They aren't super-cunning or geniuses, but they are just clever enough to be dangerous. They blindly stumble around until they discover or are given some fantastical power or knowledge (the wolf-speech, Gateways, ta'varen-ness) and then they just go hog wild and exploit the crap out of it. It gives the whole series such a fun pulpy feel. The sister-hood ceremony is probably the high-point of Jordan's writing for me. No more prudishness, no childish embarrassments, no petty and humiliating "penances", just good, frank, discussions of relationships, and trust and love, and what that all means. I like how they don't chicken out and go for a symbolic strike across the face, that's not the Aiel way. Elaine and Aviendha properly belted each other across the room. Loved it. And then they immediately half-inch the Weaves from it to make their triple Warder-bond without the briefest thought for what that bond really entails, ignoring everything the Wise Ones told them barely the day before. A little knowledge really is a dangerous thing, and I love how Min and Aviendha are so completely unprepared for the consequences. Elayne I imagine had a whale of a time. I'm halfway through 10, and coming into it from that high-point was always setting me up for a disappointment. But right now, I want to die. Huge great swathes of this thing are completely unnecessary. Why do we spend more time discussing trivial campsite arguments than Tylin's brutal death or how Mat unleashed a swarm of angry Channelers on a civilian city. It's a double shame when I think of how great Mat's gradual development has been. I love how he's instinctively noble, he doesn't see it as bravery, or conscious moral choices, he just does the right thing because that's what you do. And despite how much Nynaeve looks down on his womanising, he's the least chauvinist guy in the series. Those chapters could have been so much more. The same goes for Perrin's stuff - there's some great development with him regarding Faile + Berelain, and the responsibilities of leadership, but it's all bogged down in minutiae. The way the narrative jumps around in time so we can see everyone's days leading up to the climax of 9 is kind of clever, but I feel it would have been better served if we saw their reactions to it more quickly, instead of 4 or 5 chapters apart. It would also be better if they actually had reactions. Mat and Perrin's sections stop almost immediately after it, and both Elayne and Egwene practically ignore it. It's the single biggest thing to have happened in the world. It's both a literal and metaphysical Krakatoa. There'd be half-conscious Wilders a continent away feeling that, and does anybody care? Does anybody even go and investigate? gently caress no. There are repeated instances of poo poo like "oh that damned mushroom cloud sure is annoying me" The Darkfriend chapters are the absolute nadir of the whole series for me. They just constantly labour how backstabby and eeeeeee-vil everyone is, but give barely any character to any of them. I'll give you an example - a while back we jump into a new Darkfriend travelling to Caemlyn. Then Elayne appoints a new captain of the guard in a situation that is clearly a set up. Then that guard is revealed to the reader as a darkfriend. In this book, we then find out that he was the one we Quantum-Leapt to earlier. Did we really need any of that? Why mess around with his names? Why even have the scene when he reveals the plot to the Chosen? He could have introduced him with his real name in his first perspective chapter, then when he introduces himself to Elayne and gets promoted there's a nice punchy reveal when the reader finds out who he is. What I find more distateful, is the constant mixing of prudishness and base sex. Maybe I'm weird, but if your character is an unrepentant rapist I feel you should actually confront the magnitude of what that means. Describing it as "tumbling a woman against her will" is pointlessly euphemistic. Either call it rape, or don't make people rapists just to underscore how evil they are.
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May 2, 2014 21:56
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Strom Cuzewon posted:or how Mat unleashed a swarm of angry Channelers on a civilian city.
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May 2, 2014 23:45
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Nihilarian posted:I don't remember that. Can you elaborate? Mat releases the captured Seafolk Windfinders, they blow up a bunch of poo poo on their way out, recapture some of their ships, and make for open sea. At least some of them did survive, though a few of them are specifically pointed out as having been captured and executed.
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May 3, 2014 02:08
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api call girl posted:Mat releases the captured Seafolk Windfinders, they blow up a bunch of poo poo on their way out, recapture some of their ships, and make for open sea. At least some of them did survive, though a few of them are specifically pointed out as having been captured and executed. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 03:05 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 03:02
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Nihilarian posted:Is that what he was talking about? I dismissed it out of hand because I didn't think anyone would look at the freeing of slaves-to-be as a bad thing. Not that it's a bad thing, just that it should probably have had more focus, than the almost off-handed way Mat thinks about it, briefly.
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May 3, 2014 03:26
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api call girl posted:Not that it's a bad thing, just that it should probably have had more focus, than the almost off-handed way Mat thinks about it, briefly.
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May 3, 2014 04:55
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Nihilarian posted:Is that what he was talking about? I dismissed it out of hand because I didn't think anyone would look at the freeing of slaves-to-be as a bad thing. Oh yeah, it's totally a good thing. As was breaking the siege of Cairhien, rallying the Two Rivers, and all the other heroic deeds they get up to. But one of the big themes so far seems to be that no matter how noble and just your actions are, people will die. Freeing the damane is the first time Mat is arguably the aggressor in combat, and it felt like a missed opportunity not to milk it a bit more.
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May 3, 2014 10:45
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Not to mention the side-effect it might (probably) have on the civilian population all of a sudden getting their city/ships wrecked when those channelers pass through (I mean, probably not on purpose, but when you are torching/blowing up anything that moves on your way out and thunderbolting every ship in the harbor... ). Pretty perfect moment to have the Seanchan go, "See, only you can prevent  "There's subtle and then there's passing-over something to the point of ignoring it, but I guess the focus during those parts (after) were more on Mat/Tuon "romancing".
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May 3, 2014 11:43
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That's fair. It does sound interesting when you put it like that.
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May 3, 2014 13:54
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It's not something that's brought up and out in the open often, as most of the story is written from either a channeler's POV or someone who knows said channelers and are familiar with them but you gotta admit that channelers are some scary fuckers to your average joe (Once again, Mat is probably the most honest one out there and calls some of the other main characters out on it). The only thing seemingly holding them back is a pinky-swear "we'll not rule the world (but probably your society), ~honest~" deal, right up until the Seanchan rolled into town. Pretty much every culture and society portrayed got different ways of dealing with the "With great power comes great responsibility" / "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"-issue that channeling represents and it's one of the more interesting/realistic* issues in the books. *At least it's not Marvel's Civil War 
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May 3, 2014 20:56
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Pimpmust posted:channelers are some scary fuckers to your average joe Yeah, I think this gets glossed over a lot--anyone who tries to take on Wheel of Time as an adaptation should probably deal with this in some way.
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May 3, 2014 23:25
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api call girl posted:Yeah, I think this gets glossed over a lot--anyone who tries to take on Wheel of Time as an adaptation should probably deal with this in some way. Yep. You'd want to get across right from the very beginning that channeling is loving terrifying, and men who go crazy because of it even moreso. The opening scene with Lews Therin would really need to set the stage, and then you remind everyone halfway through the series with Dumai's Wells.
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May 4, 2014 06:26
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Even more subtle that "walking nukes" or crazed male channelers flattening your village at random is how... Verin, I think, mentions that a lot of girls develop their own little weaves before coming to the tower and a lot of those are some form of compulsion. These people are spontaneously developing long ranged invisible brain surgery powers and have the teenage ambition to use it to their full advantage. Let that sink in a little, for your average Joe perspective 
Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 09:22 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 09:20
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It's not quite that bad--Tower training begins younger than that since without guidance 75% of sparkers die when they enter adolescence, the wilders that survive generally enter into an apprenticeship with a wisdom or someone of that nature. But put all of that together in one picture it's still pretty bad.
VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 17:23 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 17:20
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Random question that came to me today: After Jasin Natael vanished, did anybody ever comment on it? I seem to remember Rand wondering if he had returned to his former group soon afterwards, but nothing later and nothing from anybody else. After Dumai's Wells maybe that just didn't seem important anymore.
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May 10, 2014 05:46
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rchandra posted:Random question that came to me today: After Jasin Natael vanished, did anybody ever comment on it? I seem to remember Rand wondering if he had returned to his former group soon afterwards, but nothing later and nothing from anybody else. After Dumai's Wells maybe that just didn't seem important anymore. I can't remember if Moiraine brought it up after she was rescued, but if she didn't, I don't think he was ever mentioned again.
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May 10, 2014 08:32
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rchandra posted:Random question that came to me today: After Jasin Natael vanished, did anybody ever comment on it? I seem to remember Rand wondering if he had returned to his former group soon afterwards, but nothing later and nothing from anybody else. After Dumai's Wells maybe that just didn't seem important anymore.
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May 10, 2014 16:43
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Okay this is pretty interesting, apparently Terez from the dragonmount forums have gotten a peak at some of Jordans final notes and posted some of it to his facebook How about this on (an?) ending? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlNahMUCAAA-CTg.jpg Choice parts from the thread (link below): Mat and Perrin didn't even exist yet other than collectively of an unspecified number of "boys" tagging along, and playing no individual role (as we know, drafts of TEOTW eventually had four of them, before Harriet had RJ cut the one who seemed to have no purpose). The ta'veren concept didn't exist yet either. Egwene who wanted to be AS and Nynaeve who loathed them seemed more the characters we know already, but Mat & Perrin had yet to emerge. Moiraine was originally supposed to become Amyrlin at some point. Her character seems to have been split to create Siuan. For those who wondered about Min's viewing of a white-hot iron for Rand...that was an early-conceived plotline that RJ actually abandoned. RJ had developed the Aiel as a concept before almost anything else, including the main characters, including Mat and Perrin. when Shai'tan was still named Sa'Khan (Shere Khan? )Quote from RJ's notes: "HOW MANY TRADITIONAL FANTASY ELEMENTS DO WE HAVE?...GIANTS? ELVES?...[No loving unicorns, that's for damned sure!]" Character looks: RJ pictured Faile as a young Cher. Fain as Alan Rickman. Moiraine=Michelle Pfeiffer More here: http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/89268-wow-just-wow-rjs-notes-viewed-by-terez/ Even more here: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/108745-the-history-of-the-wheel-of-time-aka-wots-christopher-tolkienizing/ Example: the Dark One was originally Sa'khan, a mortal but extremely powerful being from another world who was sealed back into that world by the Dragon. The War of the Shadow was basically an interplanetary war between Earth and this other world, fought through portals. During WoT proper, Rand would have inadvertently let Sa'khan into the WoT world (more explicitly our planet in the notes) and he would have conquered it before Rand defeated him at the Last Battle. This idea evolved into the one of the Dark One being Sha'tan (and then Shai'tan), the primal force of utter chaos and destruction. In this version the Forsaken were half-human, half-demon (or similar) servants of Sa'khan. An interesting thing is that the village of red-veiled Aiel in the Blight, which only appears in AMoL, is present right from the very earliest drafts. At one point it is said that the red-veiled Aiel are 'Sightblinders' who seek to destroy the Seven Eyes of the World, sources of power that will be pivotal in the Last Battle (there is also one Eye per Seal). When RJ reduced this to one and gave the Sightblinder title to the Dark One, a lot of the purpose of the red-veiled Aiel appears to have vanished, but he later came up with a new of idea of keeping them in reserve as shock troops for the Last Battle. Laughing at this bit: Rand actually slept with Morgase. This drives the furious Galad into the camp of the Shadow. He then becomes a channeller and one of Rand's main enemies. It would have been revealed that Lan was Galad's father! Clearly, this all changed. And this: Note: the first-draft WoT outline is much, much more grimdark than the series we got, with rape, mutilations and graphic violence being more prevalent than anything in the series-as-published, and also a lot more sex. Male channelers were gelded as well as gentled, to prevent spreading the spark onwards, and gentling/stilling was a procedure more akin to lobotomising. Which instead went on to be integrated into Dragon Age 
Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 20:02 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 18:14
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I did it. I read the whole drat thing. I feel like a bunch of things are missing, but I can't express what exactly. The ending felt sudden. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I believe I got to book 5 when I was about 15, and at that age, I loved it. I just decided to read it all starting book one a while back, and managed to stick with it to the end. Why does every discussion about any fictional work at one or more points devolve into "is it racist?" or "is it sexist?" or both? Is it an internet thing?
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May 21, 2014 13:47
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Menses at Work posted:Why does every discussion about any fictional work at one or more points devolve into "is it racist?" or "is it sexist?" or both? Is it an internet thing? The whole series is about gender and gender roles. Jordan can't go two sentences without talking about what men are like, and what women are like, and what men think women are like, and what men or women from one culture think of women or men from another culture. He literally designed the entire metaphysics of his world in order to play with the balance of power between men and women (and he's said so in interviews, not that he needed to). When it comes to gender, Jordan has got some opinions, and part of taking him seriously as an author is to discuss those. No doubt he would be rolling over in his grave if he'd written ten thousand pages about gender relations and, after selling a jillion copies, failed to spark conversation on the subject. As it happens I think they're pretty lovely opinions, but more to the point, any time you take a strong stance someone is going to think it's lovely. So yes, this was pretty inevitable. McNerd fucked around with this message at 14:52 on May 21, 2014 |
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May 21, 2014 14:40
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McNerd posted:The whole series is about gender and gender roles. Jordan can't go two sentences without talking about what men are like, and what women are like, and what men think women are like, and what men or women from one culture think of women or men from another culture. He literally designed the entire metaphysics of his world in order to play with the balance of power between men and women (and he's said so in interviews, not that he needed to). A reasonable and good reply. The only thing I ever thought about his descriptions of men and women being men and women was that he repeated himself endlessly. Started writing something about true believers and justice warriors, but I'm just being dumb, so I'll leave it. quote:taking him seriously as an author 
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May 21, 2014 15:55
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Menses at Work posted:
To be fair I think he does some really cool stuff with mythological allusions and stuff like that, and he deserves a lot of credit there. I don't know if that alone elevates him to Real Literature (TM) or if he just towers over the "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" genre, but it's impressive anyhow.
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May 21, 2014 16:28
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He had a pretty pulpy background (Conan) before starting the series (apparently as far back as 1984), so it's easy to see it as merely fiction. I give him credit for his rather restrained (compared to todays authors) take on stuff like sex and rape (endless descriptions of boob-windows aside). That pulpy angle on fade to black/allusion without necessarily being prude about it is quite refreshing after reading some of fantasy's newer offerings. That said, I would have liked to see that GRIMDARK 80s edition version he was sketching at first, sounds pretty hilarious (bad guy Galad, mostly).
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May 21, 2014 17:10
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